Nuclear polymorphism — a prognostic parameter to evaluate local recurrence of female breast cancer

Abstract

Between 1980 and 1986 676 patients underwent surgery for primary breast cancer. Of these, 35 patients developed locoregional recurrence. Retrospective analysis of the spontaneous postoperative development revealed 2 groups: group A had subsequent distant metastases, group B was tumor-free after surgical treatment of local recurrence. Analysis of the commonly employed characterization criteria of primary tumors (tumor size, lymph node involvement, estrogen receptors, histologic grading of primary tumors, and excised locoregional recurrence) showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups. However, a more detailed differentiation of the subcriteria for the histologic grading according to Bloom and Richardson revealed a prevalence of anaplastic nuclei in the primary tumors of group A (9/11). Even in this small patient population the parameter of nuclear polymorphism revealed a highly significant statistical difference between the two groups.

Nuclear pleomorphism, a strong prognostic factor in axillary node-negative small invasive breast cancer

“…Our results emphasize the superior role of nuclear features, especially nuclear pleomorphism, and are in agreement with the reports by Thorpe [31] and Rank [28] as well as data from our own studies that confirm its predictive potential after breast cancer surgery [11].…”

“…By analysing our own patient series we have attempted to assess the role of the established prognostic factors tumor size, menopausal status, estrogen-receptor status, and tumor histology as well as grading according to Bloom & Richardson [9] in patients with ANN breast cancer stage Tla and Tlb. Special emphasis was placed on the role of grading subfactors as independent prognostic parameters, since both nuclear pleomorphism and mitosis rate have demonstrated reliable prognostic validity in our own previous investigations [10,11]. We also investigated the impact of local therapeutic procedures.…”

Placental isoferritin associated p43 antigen correlates with features of high differentiation in breast cancer

“…Since the multivariate models were not able to confirm an independent impact on prognosis, it seems that the prolonged survival of patients with high levels of tumor p43 may be linked to the higher degree of differentiation of their tumors. This is compatible with previous findings that histologic grading, nuclear polymorphism, and rate of mitosis are important factors for the prediction of recurrence in breast cancer [25,26]. However, it must be taken into account that the effectiveness of the Cox model could have been limited by the limited number of samples (and recurrence events) compared to the relatively large number of investigated parameters in this study.…”